Posts by TonusOH

83

Do You Think Trump Is Done?

by minimus in

jw
friends

certain forces appear to be trying to make sure donald trump never runs for president again.

some republicans are clearly abandoning trump and of course the democratic press has been saying trump is done!

is trump’s goose cooked?

What does this even mean?

by Blotty in

"the son is born of the father by generation, but generation should not be understood in the everyday sense.

the son is derived from the father through pure spiritual generation, through the unlimited sharing of his essence.

so, the birth of the son is an intellectual activity of god.".

It is almost as if the writer is saying that Jesus is an imaginary creation of God's. Or perhaps that God "thought" Jesus into being, though that doesn't square with the description of God giving up some of "His essence." It seems a bit contradictory, if we try to make sense of it.

Is it a defense of the belief in the trinity, with the idea being that Jesus is 'generated' as another facet of God, as opposed to being created as an individual being?

9

New Blog - Divorce has been filed from JW husband!

by madisoncembre in

the divorce from the jw husband has been filed (finally!).

here are my musings on the subject in short form:.

still feel a bit sad about the entire thing.

TonusOH

madisoncembre: My estranged husband has told my daughter he will likely re-marry.

Do they allow that? I was under the impression that remarriage is only okay if adultery has been proven.

57

JWs unrecognisable compared to my grandfathers time

by ExBethelitenowPIMA in

my grandfather who has been dead for 37 years would not recognise the borganisation today.

he would turn in his grave if he knew the end didn’t come by 2023.. back in the 1970s he really believed in the 75 thing.

he was so disappointed and almost blamed everyone else why the end didn’t come.

TonusOH

Put a guy at the head of an organization that is convinced that he is being guided by god through the holy spirit, and he can't help but get an oversized ego from it. Ray Franz's book made it seem like Knorr and Fred Franz were quite unhappy with the committee approach that the organization adopted in the 70s. Now they had to share that power. Getting promoted to president of the organization must have felt a bit hollow to Franz after that.

I was too young to remember anyone saying much about Knorr, but I can recall people speaking of Fred Franz in reverent tones.

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

TonusOH

You know your case is screwed when even the United Parcel Service is telling you to drop it.

27

Jws getting drunk

by Farmer Jim1 in

jw
friends

has anyone got any good 'jws and alcohol' stories?

i always found it amazing that so many jws got blind drunk at parties and got away with it!

i suppose alcohol was the only fun thing we were allowed to partake in....

TonusOH

Ron W: A few days later his wife rang and tried to berate me for taking him out and getting him drunk.

So, looks like he tried to cover for being drunk by claiming it was your fault. Sounds like a grade A scumbag.

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

TonusOH

Judges the WTS for its immorality, doesn't like people pointing out his immoral behavior.

Uses Twitter to post negative opinions about others, doesn't like when others post negative opinions about him.

The world just refuses to cooperate with him, doesn't it?

32

Secret Elders Book? Bwahahaha!

by NotFormer in

i remember a couple of decades ago when the internet was relatively young and the wt was at war with it, that they were battling to keep the pay attention book secret, commencing legal action against anyone who published it online (and of course, trying to out anyone who leaked it).

i think it was a norwegian skeptics organisation who had it available for download and dared the wt lawyers to come after them.. so i guess the new shepherd the flock book came out to try and put the genie back in the bottle and reassert some air of mystery and secrecy back into the equation.. so i typed jehovah's witnesses secret elder book into google.

colour me gobsmacked!

TonusOH

Does it need to be a 'secret' book? If the instruction comes from the Bible, they shouldn't worry that the rank and file might read it.

54

Is AI going to change the world?

by Reasonfirst in

jw
friends

had lunch with a friend, whose a lecturer in the accounting dept.

of one of australia's best universities.

he told me he expects to lose his job at some point in the next 5 years, as the accounting dept, will disappear, as all accounting will be done by ai programs, so why teach it.. if his fears are correct, that means that any profession that involves the mind, may one day face the same future.

TonusOH

I think the more logical concern is that of poorly-configured or out-of-date models. We know that buggy software can cause all kinds of problems, and we know that some of them are obvious (crashes, graphical glitches) and others can be very subtle yet dangerous (incorrect output that can have catastrophic long-term effects).

Slim mentioned that AI is already doing a good job with human hands when it generates art. This sort of relatively obvious change will be a good way to see who is using outdated AI to generate art. In time, we may be able to tell which version of AI they are using by the quality of the work. In other fields, using outdated or poorly-designed AI can create problems that we don't see right away, but that can be significant nonetheless.

As with just about every human discovery and invention, we are likely to learn a few lessons the hard way.

38

Were Bible writers flat earthers?

by ExBethelitenowPIMA in

job 26:7 he stretches out the northern sky over empty space, well should it be the southern that has empty space under it?.

the north pole has the earth under it?.

the south pole has empty space under it?.

TonusOH

I can at least see where the WTS would say that "circle" referred to a spherical planet.

And burying their feces was certainly a smart and healthy practice, though there is no indication that it was done for hygienic purposes. This was in the context of soldiers in the field, and the reason given was that the camp had to be holy, because "God walks throughout your camp."

But DNA from the Psalmist talking about a cataloging of parts when he was in the womb? That's a real stretch.

I recall a video of Richard Dawkins's expression when a young Muslim girl explained to him that the Quran described the deep ocean currents, which was an indication that the Islamic holy book had the same scientific knowledge that some Christians ascribe to the Bible. If the text is vague enough, it can be reshaped endlessly to fit new discoveries, and always appears to be a step ahead of human knowledge and understanding.